Monday, February 22, 2010

Sewing Aspirations: Trench Coat Dreams

The Trench

I love Anthropologie. If you have never been in an Anthropologie store, it is kind of a cross-breed of classic styles with a distinct vintage feel mixed in. As I was perusing the website recently, I saw this trench coat (above). Check out the two tiers of fabric that create a little more feminine shape than your classic trench. That detail makes me want this coat. That feeling overcomes me a lot when I look through their website, and the urge to order everything is very hard to ignore, but I do. For as much as I love their clothes, I don't necessarily love their price tags (we cheesemongers aren't living in the lap of luxury, you know.) But, I am willing to spend the money to try to recreate it for myself.

view of back

Recreating a piece from Anthropologie is something I have been toying with for awhile. Why try to recreate a skirt, when I can jump headfirst into a trench coat?! But when I saw this, I knew fate was telling me something. I think the satisfaction of custom creating this jacket will be far more rewarding. Or I may rip out my hair in frustration. We'll see which happens first ;)

I purchased a trench coat pattern (the one below) a couple of weeks ago ... just because. See? Fate. I think I can try to tweak that pattern to do something similar to the trench coat above. I think I will need to move the buttons closer together, and when I make the muslin I will decide whether or not I will need to modify the silhouette further after adding the tiers. The pockets I will also change. I would like to be done with it before the big move. I think this will be a great learning experience. Right? Right?!

Okay, here comes the self-doubt: Am I crazy? Is this one of those instances, where we say, "Well, I can make that!" when we should just be saying, "But, I can purchase this one without risking my marriage, my sanity and perhaps weeks of frustration."